Tyler
by BigSilva
Summary: (TAKES PLACE AFTER NEVERMORE) You may be wondering why there is more to this story. The gang is alive, Max and Fang are back together, and they're on an island with no problems or erasers, Happy ever-after... right? Wrong. My name is Tyler, and this is my story. Rated T because i'm paranoid.
1. Chapter 1

_**I DO NOT OWN NOR CLAIM TO OWN THE MAXIMUM RIDE**_**_SERIES_**

You may be wondering why there is more to this story. The gang is alive, Max and Fang are back together, and the're on an island with no problems or erasers, Happy ever-after... right? Wrong. My name is Tyler, and this is my story.

It's been a couple years since the world...well...ended. There were some survivalist groups that lived through the end and the chaos afterwards. But that's no problem for Max and the gang though. They have a whole ocean separating them. Well unfortunately, wrong again.

There's one very large and powerful company that somehow survived. It's name is Itex, ring any bells? Yep, its back and creating better mutants than ever. They are none too happy that they don't have their precious flying test subjects to study. Now I guess you're wondering how I come into this now very weird and very screwed up picture. For that let's jump back to before the end of the world, but right after Max and the gang slipped through Itex's fingers.

It was my sophomore year of high school. I had tons of friends, was on the lacrosse team, a girlfriend, my life was great. I was invincible, not a care or worry in the world. That all took a dramatic change for the worse one cold, rainy, night (I know, pretty dramatic). Me, my girlfriend Ava, and my friends Randy, Trevor, Steven, and Connor went to see a movie. After the movie, we saw one of those blood drive trucks out front. We wanted to be nice and give back to the community or some s**t. We all piled into the bus and waited to get our blood drawn.

There were several guys in whitecoats looking over at us and whispering. I decided it was nothing and didn't pay attention to it. After we each got our blood drawn, we went to leave. I tried to open the door and it was locked. My heart begins to race as the whitecoats started pulling on gas masks. Green, thick looking gas leaked out of the ceiling. I didn't wait to find out if it was toxic or not as I charged the whitecoats. I didn't get very far before it all went black.

I awoke on the cold hard feeling of tile. As I opened my eyes my vision was blurry. I immediately opened my mouth to ask where Ava was. But nothing came out but a groan.

"He's awake" said one whitecoat.

"Move him with the others" replied the second.

I felt myself being restrained by handcuffs as I was dragged away. My eyesight quickly started to return. I made out testing rooms, bunks and a boatload of security. One thing struck me as a warning sign, there were no windows.

"So we're underground" I muttered to myself.

In the midst of my thoughts we made a quick left turn into a large room. I saw my friends all handcuffed to chairs around a conference room table. As I was forced into my chair, a man in a suit walked into the room. I quickly checked to see if my friends were all here, and thank god, they were. I turned my attention to the man in the suit.

The man started "I can tell you all are wondering where ..."

"You son of a b***h" Trevor interrupted. He received several clubs to the back.

"You are in the most secure training facility Itex has to offer" The man continued. "Your life as you know it is over"

"What the hell do you want with us"? I asked him.

"I don't normally do this, but you were selected..."

"Bulls**t" I retorted "We didn't sign up for anything" My head was taken from behind and slammed down on the table.

"As I was saying" He continued "You were selected to be trained and modified to peak performance. Then you will track down and capture our experiment who recently escaped. And no you don't have a choice"

After that we were all dragged though separate doors.

"Tyler!" Ava screamed.

I had no time to reply as the door slammed and I was strapped to a hard metal table. The disgusting smell of rubbing alcohol was strong. My wrists, legs and head were all strapped down, and I felt needles puncture my veins, and I HATE needles. I really started to panic and thoughts raced through my mind, We were going to be some scientific experiment. What does modified mean? My questions were interrupted as I was moved to another station. This time the whitecoats pried my eyes open. A laser passed over my eyes. After what seemed like days with the laser shining into my eye, they shut it off. My table, one-man prison thing (how you like that beautiful vocab?) was wheeled to a room with one bed in it. They unstrapped me, pushed me off the table, and locked the door as they left.

I couldn't sleep as i stayed in that dreaded room for what seemed like days. There were no windows and they took my watch. I couldn't help worrying about Ava and the rest of my friends. As I was sitting there I went over what had just happened. It was all so fast I didn't have time to think. It hit me that my life is over unless I find a way to get my friends and I out of this hell hole.

Something caught my attention in the far corner of the room, as I looked my eyes seemed to focus and zoom in until I could see the fly's eyes from all the way across the room. I jumped back, surprised at what I had just done. I realized that is what they must have been doing to my eyes. My mind started to wander to thinking what else they did. I tried to lift up the bed and to my surprise, i lifted the heavy metal frame off the ground with ease. Out of nowhere the man with the suit walked in and I dropped the bed to the floor. After a very long and awkward silence he spoke.

"Ah, I see the enhancements have worked" He said. "Come with me"

All I did was stare at him in awe. He waved me over with his hand.

"No restraints?" I asked. Still remembering the beating me and Trevor received.

"As long as you don't try any bulls**t" He replied.

We walked to the same room as before and I was happy to see all of my friends were safe. I sat down in the same chair as before.

"I think we got off on the wrong foot here" Said the man in the suit. "But I believe we can learn to trust one another eventually"

Another awkward silence ensued. I started to wonder if this guy was for real. I mean he kidnaps us, beats us, and then asks if we can trust one another? I am the definition of confused at this point. As in if you opened up a dictionary, my face would be next to "confused".

"I have an exercise for you young man" He said while pointing at me.

"Me?" I asked.

"No, the guy behind you, of course I mean you." He retorted.

"And what exactly is this exercise?" I asked.

He then took a gun out from under the table and slid it towards me. At this point my heart is racing again. He looked at me with a stone cold face and said.

"Shoot Me"


	2. Chapter 2

"Shoot me" He repeated.

My heart was racing as I raised the gun. My friends looked equally shocked, and a million different thoughts raced through my brain. He said this was a test. What kind of test is it? Am I really supposed to kill him? Then it hit me. This was a test to see if he can trust us, the gun probably isn't loaded. So I make it seem like I can't do it, but believe me I would, and drop the gun onto the table.

"No" I replied.

"Good" he started. "I trust you, as you saw by that little exercise. All I'm asking is that you trust me. You guys are our newest project, we will treat you with respect , we will feed you, and give you a room. All I'm asking in return is that when you find our little winged friends, you bring them back to us. After you bring them back, we will donate a house outside of our facility where you can retire and have the rest of your lives to yourself"

I thought about what he just said. I mean this guy, although he kidnapped us, is being quite nice. It's almost like he's trying to make amends. I don't completely trust him because he kinda kidnapped us, but that doesn't mean I can't pretend.

"Ok, who exactly are we chasing down?" I asked.

"Easy there" he said "You still have to undergo training, we may call them little or weak, but believe me they are anything but weak."

"What have you done to us?" I asked, now remembering spotting that bug from across the room and lifting the 100 pound bed like a feather.

"Well genetically, we have condensed your muscle to 400x its original density increasing your strength but still keeping the same speed as before. Your eyes have also been modified so you can now zoom in and out automatically, while it will take some getting used to it will come in handy later." Explained the man in the suit.

"How can we trust you if we don't even know your name." Said Steven.

"My name is Mike, I would ask for yours but I already know it Steven." Said Mike "Now that you know my name, we need to get back to business. Your training will begin tomorrow, but for now I need to show you the tools you will be using."

And with that we followed him out the door and down a series of hallways until we reached a room labeled "The Locker". When he opened it I couldn't believe my eyes. There was military gear and guns of all types. Armor plates, magazines, rifles, the whole nine yards. At the far side of the room were 6 lockers each with our names on them.

"You need to each take a rifle of your choice, a sidearm, and magazines. The body armor and helmets are going to need to be custom made." Said Mike " After that, follow me and I will show you to your room."

And after we had each picked, we moved on to our room, which was basically three bunk beds, but hey, it was better than what we had before. That night we all talked about what was happening because it had been a very confusing few days, or weeks. I still don't know how long I was alone in that room. Our conversation turned to Mike, if that was even his real name. We all agreed that we would trust him and do what he wanted for now.

The next morning our training began. We learned to shoot, the ins and outs of our gear, radio headsets, and first aid. Steven and Trevor became the designated sniper team. While Connor chose to take on the task of medic. The training went on for around a year and we learned how to jump from planes, and rope down from helicopters. I guess you could say we were Itex's own little seal team 6. To this day I have no idea why we ever trusted Mike but from that point on we forged a friendship. Or so I thought.


	3. Chapter 3

It was a normal day, we had just finished our shooting drills and were putting our gear away. I decided that I was going to look around the place. We were aloud free reign around the entire facility except for a single room. It seemed as if Mike built it to keep us out. It had a retinal scan instead of a lock or fingerprint scanner because we had already learned to crack those. So to me, it was intriguing, I wanted to know why Mike needed to keep us out so bad.

So for the next week I watched as a single operator would step out for his lunch break at 2:00 sharp every day. However he would come back after only 5 minutes. So if I was going to do this, it had to be fast. My plan was so stupid, nobody would ever suspect it was a plan at all, the whitecoats would think it was just an accident. I was going to lube up the floor outside of his office so that he would slip and fall. Hopefully the blow will knock him unconscious, I will then use his eye to gain access to the room. And hey, if it didn't work, it's so stupid that no one would suspect a thing.

The next day when we finish up training I head straight towards the room with a bottle of gun lube. Hey, it was all I had don't judge. I made sure no one was looking and I dumped it on the floor. I walked to the end of the hallway and waited. At 2:00 sharp, I mean really this guy was just so predictable it was pathetic. He exited the room and slipped. He hit his head HARD. I quickly ran over an held his eye open to the scanner. The door swung open and I entered.

What I saw sprawled across the table was a CD labeled "OperationTyler". I couldn't figure out why it was named after me, but it didn't matter at this point. I pushed the disk into the computer. It was an audio recording of Mike.

"We have acquired 6 new experiments which we will use to reacquire Maximum Ride." He started. None of this was new and I was about to leave until I heard this. "When they find Ride, she will most likely tell them the truth about us. When they find this out, they will turn against us and we cannot afford to have this happen." He continued. "When they send Ride and her flock back in the prison chopper, we will blow up the chopper holding Tyler and his team."

I left the room appalled, we were being used. There won't be any reward for our efforts, our months of training. We trusted Mike for nothing. But I can't tell the others and I need to pretend that I never found the tape. We will go and make it seem that we are going to capture Maximum, but we will not return. We will let Ride go and live a life on the run, but it's better than dying.

**_ONE MONTH LATER_**

It was the day before we are supposed to ship out. At 0800 we are called down to the conference room, where Mike is waiting and quickly starts the presentation.

"They have taken residence in an island 100 miles off the coast of the Hawaiian mainland. Basically in the middle of where which is why it took us so long to find them. There will be no air support. The mission needs to be quick and silent as there are too many other inhabitants for a full scale takeover. The helicopters only have enough fuel to stay running for 10 minutes after touchdown at the island. You've training for months for this mission. Get in, get out, and bring them to us. Any questions? No? Good, you are dismissed. Clean you weapons and prepare your gear." Mike finished.

We filled out of the conference room one by one and made our way to the equipment room. We started to remove all un-necessary gear from our lockers. When we left tomorrow all we wanted to have to do was put on our plate carriers, grab our weapons, and load into the chopper.

"I'm not putting plates in the rear of my carrier" Said Randy

"Why not, it's only 8 more pounds, and we don't know what kind of firepower they have on that island of theirs." Said Ava.

"I'm not exactly planning on getting shot in the back running away." Retorted Randy.

We all laughed at that last statement.

"Don't come crying to me if you do." Said Connor jokingly.

We all laughed again, but I could tell we were all nervous as we went to our bunk that night. We turned the light out right away and went to bed, it was going to be a long day tomorrow after all. I heard footsteps come across the room towards me and climb into my bunk.

"Hey." Said Ava.

"Well hello there" I replied " I thought I was going to get kidnapped again."

She giggled and said "I haven't told anybody this but, I'm nervous about tomorrow. What if we don't come back?"

I brushed her hair back and told her "I'm sure we'll be fine, we've been trained well." I leaned over and kissed her forehead. She responded my rolling over on top of me and started to kiss me roughly back. I was surprised, but quickly returned the favor. Just then the lights turned on and I heard laughter.

"Well, well, well. Caught in the act I s..." Teased Trevor. He was cut off when a pillow hit him in the face.

"Shut up Trevor" Ava said. She rolled over.

"Guys, go back to sleep." I said. "Big day tomorrow."

Tomorrow was going to be big, even bigger than any of us could have expected.


	4. Chapter 4

The alarm sounded in the loudspeaker and the harsh overhead lights came on. We rushed to get our woodland camo on and headed out the door towards "The Locker" we headed inside and put on our plate carriers on, grabbed our helmets and rifles and headed towards the hangar bay where the choppers were already starting up. As we got in the pilot came over the radio in our headsets.

"Thank you for choosing Itex airlines, this is a non-smoking helicopter, please keep your trays in the upright and locked positions at all times" The pilot joked as we clipped in our lanyards and the helicopters started to lift off of the ground. The flight was going to be a long one. From the facility to the island off the mainland of Hawaii. I still hadn't told any of the others about my plan, but I planned to as soon as we got off of the helicopter. After the first hour the adrenaline and nervousness started to fade, it was replaced by boredom. It was 1200 when we left, and we planned on arriving sometime after dark so we could use the element of surprise to our advantage. As time went on Ava rested her head on my shoulder, and after a while I started to dose off as well.

I was jolted awake by some minor turbulence as we headed over a set of plateaus. Moments later a radio transmission came from Mike.

"I understand you have learned of our plan to not uphold our end of the bargain. We cannot live with the risk of you joining forces with Ride and her winged band of lunatics. So your mission, and your squad is as of now, terminated." The radio abruptly shut down.

As we passed over one of the plateaus, I saw at least 100 erasers all heavily armed. Some with rockets and others armed to the teeth with the same guns we had.

"What the f**k." Yelled Connor.

"We're not going down without a fight." I yelled above the noise of the main rotor.

"RPG left side, left side." Panicked Randy as one of the erasers fired it's rocket.

"F**k bank right" Yelled the co-pilot.

The helicopter jolted right and the rocket flew over the tail rotor. Steven rushed to man the guns on the side of the helicopter and started sending a steady stream of hot lead towards our attackers. One more of the erasers fired his rocket at the other chopper. It hit dead on and the helicopter exploded in mid-air.

"Holy s**t, Viper 2 is down, say again Viper 2 is down". While we were concentrating on the erasers in front, we didn't see the ones coming from the rear. They fired a rocket and this time we had didn't see it coming. It hit the tail rotor and jolted the entire helicopter forward. Alarms and lights were flashing. Steven was nearly thrown out the side door, only held attached to the chopper by his lanyard, Connor was able to pull him back in.

All of a sudden the pilot yelled "I've lost control of the tail rotor, prepare for impact, we're going in hard!" The helicopter launched itself into a tail spin. The helicopter hit the ground with a smash. I was launched from my seat and hit the side of the chopper head first.

My vision was blurry, but I managed to make out Steven climbing out the door, which was now pointing straight up." I guess I would have a good view of the sky when I die" I thought to myself. I could hear the muffled sound of Steven shooting at the erasers as I looked around the crashed chopper. Ava was slumped forward in her seat, still buckled in. The pilot and co-pilot windshield was sprayed with blood and Trevor was being attended to by Connor. And white-hot sparks shot out of the light socket. I searched for Randy but couldn't find him, but as I heard him yelling to Steven, I knew he was outside. I shakily got up and put my helmet on, buckled it and grabbed my rifle. Before I climbed out of the wreckage, I unbuckled Ava and placed her on the ground next to Trevor and told Connor to look out for her.

I climbed out of the wreckage and my hearing stopped ringing, and my eyesight started to return. I jumped down from the crashed heli. And made my way over to the rock Randy and Steven were using as cover.

"Why the hell would Mike do this to us?" Yelled Steven.

I decided it was best to keep my mouth shut for now and focus on the gun fight. I peaked my head around the edge of the rock and saw maybe 20 erasers left, we still had a shot. But we were low on ammo.

"Only shoot at what you know you can hit." I ordered.

Steven poked his gun around the corner and shot three times before that mag ran out of ammo.

"Randy last mag!" He shouted. As Randy turned around to hand Steven a full magazine, a bullet whizzed by and hit him in the back. His eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed onto the ground.

"F**k, RANDY!" I shouted. "MEDIC"

Connor came out of the crashed chopper and rushed over to us. He dragged Randy behind the rock and started doing what he does best. I pointed my gun out from behind the rock, lined up my sights and shot two rounds into one of the erasers. He dropped like a sack of potatoes to the ground. I took cover again.

Another radio transmission came through. "What the hell is that" Said Mike. "It's. OH MY GOD. Tidal Wave!" It sounded like Mike was screaming in the control room. "Its filling with water." He yelled, followed by the sound of him gargling and probably drowning. All of the erasers collapsed. I guess they were the new- gen robot ones.

As the adrenaline faded, I glanced over to see if Connor was doing okay with Randy.

"Connor, is he gunna be alright?" I asked.

"He'll be fine as long as I can keep the wound clean." He responded.

"What about Trevor and Ava?" I asked again.

"Trevor has a broken arm, but it's not serious." He said. "Ava has a broken rib, probably from the seat strap. We're lucky nothing bad happened to the rest of us, the co-pilot is dead. But the pilot isn't hurt too bad. We might be able to get out of here."

I walked back to the crashed heli to check on Ava.

"You ok?" I asked.

"Yea, you?" She responded.

"I'm fine, Randy got hit though."

"Oh my god, Is he ok, he wasn't wearing his plates!"

"He got pretty f**ked up, but Connor stopped the bleeding and he seems to be ok now."

"Thank god. Connor didn't believe me when I said I was fine. He gave me some pain medication, its making me kinda tired." She leaned over and rested her head in my lap. I leaned against the back door of the chopper and rested my eyes, but eventually fell asleep.


	5. Chapter 5

**Sorry I haven't updated in a while, to make up for it I will be putting out two more chapters tomorrow.**

I had called everyone over to the command tent.

"Alright, we can begin. As you know the world has... Well, ended. We are running out of provisions here and need to acquire more." I Began. "Connor how are you on medical supplies?"

"Running low sir, used the last of the morphine on the pilot and Randy. Don't have too many bandages left." Connor replied.

"We have enough ammo to last us a lifetime, but we only have enough food for 3 days." Said Randy.

"We need to make the trip to Ride's island tonight, we think that Max is a friendly, but we have no intel on the rest of the island. Therefore we must prepare for the island to be hostile, but do not engage unless engaged upon. As you know the only aircraft we have is the C-17 plane ITEX used to get the rust-buckets here. So we will be HALO parachute jumping on location. Steven, Andres, you'll provide sniper cover when we land on location, callsign: Raptor 2-4. Connor, Trevor, Ava, and I will see if anyone is home, callsign: Raptor Actual."

"Sir, what if there are whitecoats on the island?" Asked Trevor.

"Kill them." I replied. "Any questions?... Good, load up."

It was pitch black outside with no moon, a perfect night for an assault if you ask me. No one seemed to be nervous, at this point we've seen it all, I don't think anything could surprise us. The pilot turned on the Red light which means sixty seconds out.

I got up from my seat and began the jump sequence "Everyone, stand up!" I shouted over the noise of the engine as the team stood up. "Gear Check!"

"Six OK"

"Five OK"

"Four OK"

"Three OK"

"Two OK"

"One OK" I finished.

The light turned green and the backdoor of the C-17 opened. We all walked, and jumped out of the door. The feeling of jumping out of that plane will never get old. I pulled the cord of my parachute and found a good spot of grass on the island to land. I hit the ground smoothly and quickly began to re-pack my chute. The others began to land beside me and do the same.

"Raptor 2-4 this is Raptor Actual, radio check." I whispered over the radio.

"You know you just could have asked." Andres replied smartly being right next to me.

"Don't get cocky, we don't know what we're up against yet, get to the sniper hide."

"Yes sir." He replied and then he and Steven walked off toward the top of the hill.

A few minutes later Steven came over the radio. "Raptor 2-4 in position, we have two un-identified targets still moving in Ride's residence. Proceed with caution."

"Raptor Actual copies all, proceeding to target building." I replied. "Let's move out" I whispered to my squad.

As we moved the couple hundred yard to the target building, I primed my AR-15 and took it off safe. I looked back and told Trevor to get the flashbang ready for entry. From our briefings at ITEX we learned that they were excellent hand to hand fighters, so we needed the element of surprise.

We reached the house and I told Trevor to ready. At this point I was second guessing the forced entry idea, maybe we should knock, I mean we only want to talk, not arrest them.

"No flashbang." I ordered, and Trevor put away the flashbang.

"Sir..."

"It's an order" I cut him off. "Breach on my mark. 3. 2. 1. Mark.

Trevor kicked in the door, and spun back so that Connor, Ava, and I could fit through. I saw Max and the blind kid from the briefing sitting on the couch.

"Don't move put your hands behind your head." I yelled.


End file.
